Underground ReLOVEution

Romans 11:33-36
33Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34"For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?"
35"Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?"

36For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

At some point, and probably at many points, a Christian has to deal with this idea of the authority of God. I love to think on God as my friend, my saviour, the one who forgives my sins and loves me, but when it comes to him being the Lord of my life, I cringe. I do it because I am sinful and I don't like to give control to God over things that are *mine*. I want God to fit into my mold and when he busts out of it, I get angry, frustrated and pissed off at God. I don't think I'm alone.

I was listening to a sermon and the guy was talking about how humanity, and us as individuals are "glory thieves". We were created to give glory to Jesus, in other words to make the world see God as big. Instead we spend most of our lives trying to make ourselves big and important. We are literally syphoning the glory of God and trying to give it to ourselves, like someone stealing gas from a car.

A major part of our Christianity is dealing with this. When God shows up, we have to make a choice. We can either push God away and continue to live in disobedience, giving glory to our puny, insignificant names; or we can repent and start to give glory to the one who deserves it.

I've been thinking on this verse and it makes so much sense in this context. How can we question God's glory? We seem to want to stand next to God and tell him how to do things, we want to see him as our equal, but he is not. He created the heavens, the earth, he knows the innerworking of every molecule and he understands how one situation will affect another; things we can NEVER understand. Let me repeat that, things we can NEVER understand. Our good response to God is to simply repent and live in authority underneath him.

So how does this work out practically? First of all, we need to read and understand the Bible. God's authority is played out in his Word. One of the reasons I am SOOO passionate about preaching on Tuesday nights is because I know that my words have no authority. This may sound weird but follow me. I am a human, prone to sin, prone to bad ideas, prone to my own ideas about God. However God's word does have authority. In fact, the only authority I own when I get up on Tuesday nights is in my ability to show what the scriptures say in and of themselves. If what I say is against scripture or even if the scriptures are silent on it, I HAVE NO AUTHORITY. It is just me blabbering about like a fool. Not only that, but like Steve spoke about last week, I am under greater judgment because I'm teaching something that is not from God. Because of this, I want everyone to love, appreciate, know, understand, and soak up the scriptures for themselves. It's not about Steve getting up and giving us some wisdom that came from him because he is so wise, but rather because the wisdom is already there in the scripture.

A long tangent I know, but follow me. Hebrews says that the Bible is a two-edged sword. It is living and active and cuts through bone and marrow and soul and spirit. The Word of God is POWERFUL, it is AUTHORITATIVE, and it points us towards Jesus. We as Christians are constantly being sanctified and God is constantly showing us our sinful hearts in hope that we will confess our sins and grow in becoming more like him.

So let's continue to study God's word together, confessing our sins when God shows them to us and growing closer to him in holiness and sanctification. Let's see God as not just our friend and saviour, which he is, but also our Lord.